citizen diplomacy

When the Icelandic government announced it would accept 50 refugees, its citizens rallied, using a Facebook event page to volunteer their homes and pressure the government to grant more refugees asylum. On Sunday, award-winning author Bryndis Bjorgvinsdottir set up the pageSyria is Calling. The group aims to present Iceland's welfare minister Eygló Harðardóttir a list of volunteers willing to house Syrian refugees.

The festival will run from 12 - 22 September 2015 at the world-renowned cultural institution La MaMa in downtown Manhattan. Wholly citizen-initiated and run by a committee of volunteers, Something To Write Home About (STWHA) will showcase the best of Singapore's arts and culture, featuring over 40 Singaporean artists from a wide range of disciplines, including visual arts, dance, music, theater, film, literary arts, and culinary arts.

In 1956, near the end of this first term, Eisenhower convened a White House conference on citizen diplomacy. Out of that grew Sister Cities International, a non-profit organization with the mission to “promote peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation – one individual, one community at a time.” [...] Durham joined the growing Sister Cities movement toward people-to-people diplomacy.

June and July were important months in the fight for the rights of of Afro-Latin American and Afro-Caribbean women. July 25 was a particularly important date — the customary day of celebration for these women — highlighting the need to recognize the struggles they have faced throughout history. It was also an opportunity to bring to light the injustices unique to women of African descent as opposed to those of men. The combination of gender, race and ethnicity, along with social class has only served to aggravate the oppression they have faced.

The American Democracy Project, a national initiative that has chapters on many college campuses, aims to prepare college graduates to be knowledgeable, engaged citizens in their communities, according to the official ADP website. The project is a partnership between The New York Times and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Kim, one of many artists, storytellers and playwrights that descended on Mel Lastman Square for Friday’s Peace Fest, seeks to share stories of the traumatic past to enlighten the present and preserve the future.

The photographer, Brandon Stanton, usually chronicles everyday New Yorkers on the popular blog Humans of New York. This month, however, he visited Pakistan and posted images and the stories of the people he encountered there — including Syeda Ghulam Fatima, a campaigner against what's known as bonded labor.